The absence of
blinding can lead to misleading results, as a story on the
BBC news website shows. Researchers have shown that a person’s enjoyment of wine can be heightened if they are told that it is an expensive one. The only information the subjects in the study were given was the price of the wine - but in a number of cases, they were not told the real price. In one case, the volunteers were given two identical red wines to drink and were told that one cost much less than the other. Most of the subjects in the study described the ‘higher priced’ wine as much more enjoyable, even if it was the same as the ‘cheaper’ wine. The subjects associated the price of the wine with prestige, expecting it to be a good vintage, with a good label, even though they didn’t have that information. Expectation can affect the encoding of experience.
